Anger flares over market bomb deaths

Wailing and sobbing, black-clad mourners gathered for a funeral procession amid the wreckage of a Baghdad marketplace where Iraqi officials say dozens of civilians died in a coalition bombing.

Elsewhere, Iraq's Information Ministry building was damaged but not destroyed in a pre-dawn US missile attack.

Planes were heard over the capital, drawing anti-aircraft fire, and the blazes started by authorities to conceal targets sent darker-than-usual clouds over the city on an otherwise clear day.

Despite the fires and intermittent explosions, Saturday saw the heaviest traffic on the streets of Baghdad since the war broke out. Many shops were open in the commercial districts and thousands of residents were on the streets.

At the Al-Nasr market in the working-class district of al-Shoala, crowds of mourners wailed amid bloodstains and piles of wreckage. Blood-soaked children's slippers sat on the street not far from a crater blasted into the ground.

At the scene of Friday's bombing, women in black chadors were sobbing outside homes where some of the victims lived. Men cried and hugged each other as a funeral procession passed through the market.

Down the road, residents gathered at a Shiite Muslim mosque, crowded around seven wooden coffins draped in blankets. Some of the men stood silently. Others sobbed into trembling hands. In the background, women cried, "Oh God! Oh God!"

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf had said earlier that 58 people were killed -- and many others wounded -- in the explosion at the market Friday evening. There were conflicting reports, however, on the number of casualties.

Haqi Ismail Razouq, director of al-Nour Hospital, where the dead and injured were taken, put the death toll at 30 and the number of injured at 47. Surgeon Issa Ali Ilwan said 47 were killed and 50 injured. Witnesses said they counted as many as 50 bodies.